For Better or Worse
by ShepherdGirl2113
Summary: The tables have turned and now, she’s the one helping him. Post ‘An Honest Mistake’ MD


**Disclaimer- I don't own Grey's Anatomy**

**Summary- The tables have turned and now, she's the one helping him. Post 'An Honest Mistake' MD**

**A/N- I couldn't help this one, it was calling out to me. I'm sure that many of these will surface in the next three weeks, but I just thought I'd give it a shot, see where it went. I'm not sure I like it, but here it is regardless. Thanks for reading, as always.**

He is drunk out of oblivion. You, who had succumbed to tequila's power many a time before, know this. The amber bottle was near full when you sat down maybe twenty minutes ago, minus a shot or two but now, the bottle is drained. Even your glass, which you set on the table a while ago is long gone. Derek, who you've never once seen drunk before and only heard the stories about when he was, is drunk out of his mind.

That scares you because you've never seen him like this; so broken and beyond words. It scares you more than his shouting in the OR today, more than his red eyes when he spoke to Jen's husband because now, it doesn't look like he's doing anything but staring at the wall ahead of him. You would rather him yelling at you or breaking down into an emotional wreck because then you'll know he's feeling something, anything, other than drunk. But he's just sitting there, staring at the wall.

"Derek," you say, prying the empty glass out of his hands. For someone who's had as much alcohol as he did, Derek has an extremely strong grip on the glass he's holding. You manage to get it out of his vice grip, but still, he doesn't even blink in your direction. "Derek," you say again, this time with more urgency, more forcefully. You don't know what you want to say to him, you really don't know what to say to someone who is as broken as he is right now, but in this moment you need him to look at you. You need that.

His eyes reluctantly lock on yours and you're shocked by what you see. You've grown talented at reading Derek's eyes; you can tell when he's in a playful mood or frustrated but when he looks at you, you can't identify what you see. "Let's go upstairs," you say, grabbing his arm and helping him stand. It's a difficult process; he can't see straight and identify left from right and you're shorter and weight less than he does. Nevertheless, you manage to sling his arm over your shoulders and you wrap your arm around your waist to support him.

As you step slowly, Derek bumps into the coffee table, causing the empty bottle of tequila to tumble towards the ground and shatter loudly. You look up at him instantly when it does and he looks at the broken pieces curiously. His eyes tell you that he's close to a breakdown. "Hey," you say sharply, brining Derek's attention back to you. "I'll clean it up later." Derek nods and you continue to walk with him towards the stairs.

The stairs are more difficult than you anticipated and Derek is so far gone that he doesn't seem to understand the concept of stairs. So, really, it's just you trying to drag your drunk, broken boyfriend up the stairs and that's no easy task.

When you reach your room, you open the door and Derek seems to suddenly know where he is. His arm around your shoulders, heavy and cold lifts off you and he stumbles towards the bed, falling onto your side. You watch helplessly as he grabs onto your pillow and deeply inhales the scent. You wish that there were magic words that you could say to take this away from him but this is something that Derek has to work through himself. All you can really do is stay at his side and help him if he lets you.

You kick off your shoes and climb into his side of the bed. It's strange that such a little thing can have such a big feeling, you find yourself reaching left for him instead of right. You don't say anything to him because in this moment there are no words that need to be said; a 'you did everything you could' would send him straight for that emotional breakdown, an 'it wasn't your fault' would have him saying that it in fact, was and a 'I love you' would be unnecessary. You know he knows that. So instead, you place your hand on top of his arm just to let him know you're there.

"I'm a murderer," he slurs, his back still turned on you. "I'm supposed to save them. And I murdered her." Derek shakes his head and buries his face deeper into your pillow.

"You can't save everyone, Derek," you whisper to him, picking your words carefully. "Even God can't save everybody."

Derek slams his forearm onto the side of the nightstand and you jump. The sound is loud, piercing and the items on the top of the nightstand rattle from his force. "I could have saved her," he says. It is strange that when Derek says this, his voice is clear and poignant. You slowly reach for his arm and pull it away from the nightstand; he doesn't need any more pain, physical or mental. You leave it at that because whatever you try to say to convince him otherwise won't be heard. "Mark and Lexie," he says suddenly and you think what a strange thing it is to bring up. His best friend and your sister.

"What about them?" you say quietly.

"They're happy," Derek is back to slurs and you can barely make out what he's saying, his voice is so quiet. "But I hit him. Many times."

"Mark will forgive you," you say and you realize that your voice doesn't quiver or shake; this you know. If you and Cristina who haven't been friends ten times as long as Mark and Derek have can work things out, you know they can too.

"I don't know who I am," Derek says as his eyes close.

It's the last thing he says before you feel his even breathing that tells you he's asleep and you wish that he's left you with something other than that to ponder over the night. You observe the cuts on his face, one by his eye and the other on his nose. _They really did a number on each other_, you think as you run your fingers over the places you think would be most sore. This evening, you had cleaned up three or four more prominent cuts on Derek's face and although you did a pretty good job, you know he'll be bruised in the morning.

You sigh and wonder what you've missed, if you could have been the one to stop this. Because although it's both your job and his to save everybody who rolls into the ER, it's also your job as his girlfriend to save him.

A knock on the door makes you jump. "Hey," Alex whispers as he opens the door. "How's your guy?" It's the first smile across your face in what feels like days and you look over to Derek. You shake your head just in case he can hear you, although you think that's a long shot. "I heard about the brawl," Alex continues, standing with his hands on his hips. "And there's an empty broken bottle of tequila downstairs." His unsaid words hang in the air. _I wanted to check on you._

"Could you clean that up for me?" you ask Alex, but your attention is still on Derek. Normally Alex will give you a face when you ask him to clean something up, but tonight he nods; he gets that you don't want to leave Derek's side.

"It's going to be okay," Alex says to you softly as he closes the door. Although Derek didn't need to hear anything tonight, that is exactly what you needed to hear and you smile.

"Thank you," you whisper, even though there's no way he could have heard it.

At around two in the morning, you see headlights swing into the driveway and you assume that it must be Izzie. You're still not asleep at this point, you haven't even laid down on the bed yet. You can't because you don't know what will happen in the next moment; if he'll reach out for you, if he'll say something, if he'll die from alcohol poisoning. You can't sleep when there are a million and one thoughts running through your head so you settle for running your hand up and down Derek's arm and pushing his hair out of his eyes.

You stay by his side the whole night, sitting cross legged so that you can see if anything happens to him. After all, you know he's done the same for you more than once.

Somewhere between the time Izzie arrived home and the rising of the sun, you find yourself incoherently murmuring something you memorized long ago, though you've never had the need to use it. _For richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health._ You had always thought that those lines of the wedding vows were unbelievably cheesy and held no meaning but as you sit on Derek's side of the bed with all your thoughts on him and him only, you suddenly understand why they're written into the vows. It's because you should want to be at his side, you want to help him, you want to be there for him regardless. You're supposed to protect him, just like he's supposed to protect you.

You spend the rest of the night working through this realization and when the first light breaks, you realize that you've just spent the night ready to fight Derek's demons. You're not married, yet, but it's written into the vows after all. _To love and to cherish no matter what._

**MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD**

The first thing you see when you open your eyes is white, which makes you think that you've somehow died during the night. But in the next second, a headache the size of Washington begins and you groan, trying to block out the light. The last thing you remember is broken glass on the floor, although that doesn't make any sense.

Suddenly, you sit up. It's a little known fact but while you act playful and a little childish while you're drunk, it doesn't take much to turn you violent as well. That's why you don't get drunk often.

"Hey," Meredith says, her hands on your shoulders. "I'm here." You turn and look Meredith up and down. Her eyes are tired, fluttering like mad but she doesn't seem hurt in any way.

"Did I," you say, trying to get the words to come out coherently. You wouldn't be surprised if you were still a little drunk. "Did I hurt you?" you ask.

Meredith looks confused. "No," she says and you exhale slowly. Thank God. "Of course you didn't." She seems completely shocked by the idea but honestly, when you're at that stage, you really don't know what you're capable of. You rest your head back on the bed and close your eyes. Even in total darkness, you can still feel the room spinning around you. "For better or worse," you hear her whisper and your eyes snap open. You know those words all too well.

"What?" you ask, looking up at her. Meredith's face goes red and she looks away from you.

"I didn't say anything," she insists but you sit up and lean your pounding head against the head board.

"Marry me," you say suddenly. Once the words are out, you can't take them back. God. Out of all the places, all the possible times, this ranked as the worst. You don't even know why you said it.

"What?" Meredith says, halfway between crying and laughing. "Derek, I think you're still a little drunk."

"No," you say, taking her hand. "I'm not. I'm serious. Marry me." Meredith's smile slowly turns to shock as she looks at you and then around the room. "You make me remember who I am when everything has gone to crap. You make me feel as though I know who I am."

You don't know why these are the magic words but her eyes are suddenly on you and she smiles. "Okay," she agrees.

When she agrees, she doesn't move to kiss you and you make no move to kiss her. Instead, you slowly pull her into your arms and hold her tightly. She has most likely stayed up the whole night watching over you and now, you want to let her sleep.

You know that you'll be okay eventually. Maybe not today and maybe not the day after. But in a month or a year, you know that you'll be okay again because you've got Meredith and you know that she will love you no matter what. And in the long run, that's enough to make you better.

**A/N- I wasn't planning on ending with the proposal, and honestly, I'm not even sure I like it. When it happens on the show, I hope it's a little more romantic than this. But the point I was trying to get across was the fact that Meredith was the one there for Derek this time, and how they didn't need to say anything to each other. Because they didn't need to. So I hope you liked it, it was calling out to me to be written after 5x16. Reviews are much appreciated! Thanks for reading!**


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